Trump Says Progressive Democrats hate this country with a passion, they can leave if they want to
I saw a video and article from Fox News from July 15th, 2019. FOX News Videos 12:56pm Eastern 7/15/19 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-doubles-down-on-go-back-tweets-amid-outrage-calls-on-radical-congresswomen-to-apologize, https://video.foxnews.com/v/6059406997001/#sp=show-clips
I know this occurred just about a month ago, but it’s taken me some time to try and work out what things mean.
It’s taken me this long and some fair amount of research on hate speech to arrive at any sort of understanding here. And so much has occurred since this video and news article were published that I feel that there is almost an historical record now, of how we got from there to here.
By here, I’m talking about the mass shootings from Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton, of course.
When the President first made the headline remarks, he was immediately called out for these remarks as racist. I agree. Not that “leave if you don’t like it here” is a new catcall. It’s not. It’s been spouted for decades now and shouted at anyone, it seems, that thinks there’s a different and perhaps better way to do things than what’s currently occurring.
In the social atmosphere in place since 2015, when President Trump began campaigning, it’s become worse. In this particular case, he, always sensitive to negative comments, disliked what the four congress-people were saying about him. As usual, he denies saying anything wrong, but still, taunts of “go back where you came from,” are historically hate speech, whether hate speech is a regulated thing or not. (And it isn’t, at least at the federal level. It is regulated at the private industry level.)
What’s worse, he conflates, purposefully or ignorantly, the fact that some people, like our four congresswomen, have different ideas on how to run the country with people who hate the country.
From my own perspective, the fact that anyone thinks about how the country is run and has a different point of view, is a good thing. That’s why there is more than one party. That’s why we have a system of governance with two legislative houses, an executive branch, and a separate judiciary. There are supposed to be differing points of view. There is supposed to be vigorous debate on the pros and cons of any method of governance and policy. The Progressive Democrats don’t hate our country. They’re doing everything they can to put people first in a government that has become all about the 1%, corruption, and self-interest. The President hasn’t drained the swamp, he’s made it larger and deeper.
And, because they are women of color, perhaps he just assumed that they came from somewhere else, not, as in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the next borough over. Or maybe he knew full well where they came from and just put that outrageous statement out there to stir the emotional pot. It’s hard to tell.
And now, he’s making statements that decry racist statements, despite the fact that nearly every time he opens his mouth, not only is he speaking a lie, last numbers I saw had the lying at 70% of everything he says, but that he’s saying something racist.
I don’t see how he can deny that these last three shooters were racist. They say so in their manifestos and social media posts. They’re all white young men. Calling them mentally ill is a misnomer and bad mouths actual people with mental illness. Blaming violent video games is just stupid.
It’s all of a piece, I think. He’s wound his base up with hate speech and now it’s coming home to roost. Since his statements about the four congresswomen, several men have been arrested for plotting to kill one or all of the congresswomen or threatening to. Since the shootings, several men have been taken into custody for planning similar mass shootings.
These killings have generated fear, even in places where there hasn’t been a mass shooting. In my hometown, where open carry is legal, neighbors have reported on local chat groups about how they are seeing more and more people with handguns on their hips. The theory is that they can shoot any would-be gunman. But I have heard that in El Paso, there was a man carrying a weapon and he reported afterward that there just wasn’t time to pull his weapon. He only had time to grab a few kids and hurry them off to safety.
So, hate speech. It’s not right to tell people to go back to where they came from. They come from here; the Bronx, Milwaukee, California, or wherever. They’re here to stay. They’re here to make the United States of America a better place. They or their parents, or grandparents, or great-grand parents, came here, just like all the rest of our families, to make a better life for themselves and their children.
The brown people aren’t going away, just as the Irish didn’t go away, the Catholics didn’t go away, and the Italians didn’t go away. Get used to it.
